| Little Children, old Geezers and Betties “All think the same” “All children, (most), are born geniuses and then they are brainwashed” The "canteen" (Scroll down) To which I will start. I must have been around 8 years old. My parents being dysfunctional to the max, (crazy), they built a shack in the middle of four acres in a semi desert type area, “Sunny Road”. The nearest tree was miles away and even the Jack Rabbits had to carry canteens. (A story about “Canteens” will follow). The closest school was Castle school. As a naive kid, (still am to some extent), for example, when I was visiting in a small town in Maribor, Slovenija, I leaned about Kiosks, (not really naive, but uneducated, which makes me angry), I thought that the name Castle represented how the school looked. It was not until years later that I learned that the name was the name of the land owner whom donated the land for the school. (It still pisses me off that public buildings are named after some ash-hole who bought them off). Sunny Road was about ¼ mile south of Weber Road, which was later changed to Arch Rd., after the building of the CYA. The same thing happened for Castle Road, (that used to run from Weber Rd. to French Camp Rd.), which was also named after the Castle family. Since no one knew that castle rd. went all the way to French Camp Rd., (to which Castle School was located), we had to walk all the way down to Austin Road and then back up to the school. (Because of the long walk, I missed a lot of school and because I stuttered, I was considered a moron). At that time, highway 99 was just a two lane road. Therefore we could not walk along side of the highway. It was about the same distance anyway. The school eventually obtained a school bus. Now at this time 99 was being made into a four lane highway whith two lanes going in each direction whith a medium strip between the two lanes. Lets see, it was the “Fifties” and was the beginning of the end, (which is now), when this country started moving forward. Therefore two overpasses were being built, one on Weber Rd. and the other one over French Camp Road. (All the land on the east side of 99 belonged to the Turner family. There used to be a train station there to load produce, so named “Turner Station”. Turner Station was a bar, coffee shop, “convenient” store and had two gas pumps. After the overpass was constructed, the “Bar-store-restaurant and gas”, was moved to the other side. The name later was changed to “Jack-Ass” Junction). (All this is leading up to the bus-truck wreck). In the beginning there were only two class rooms, grade 1 to four and grade 5 to 8. The principal at that time was Lawrence DeRico, who latter became the head of a Stockton college. I would refer to him as “Captain Bligh. When I graduated from Castle, it was the last year of the school which at that time had four teachers. Then the principal was a sadistic man, a one, Harold Bickel, who got his “goodies” off by beating the hell out of me an another boy, Wilson. (He would sometimes talk out of the side of his mouth and was a chain smoker. His “office” was a side room off of the stage and when he would open the door, smoke would come billowing out! Because neither of us would cry, Wilson, because he was tough and me because I was in a constant state of fear from my mother, (and he knew that I would never tell my mother, so he could do anything that he wanted, took a sport type of a flat bat and drilled holes in it to make it faster, (hit harder). He even showed it to the class, which at that time consisted of the 7th and 8th grades, bragging that it would cause more pain! Well anyway, we had a janitor that lived in the tool shack right behind the rest rooms. We kids knew that he drank. He was also the bus driver at the time of the accident. You see, they had to bring in truck loads of dirt to complete the building of the overpass. These trucks were double trailers, bottom dumps. One morning when attempting to make a right hand turn onto French Camp Rd., a truck was passing and the bus turned into the path of the second trailer. None of us kids received any injury but it messed of the bus. Well the CHP, (California Highway Patrol) came out to the school and interviewed all of us that were on the bus. Okay, now everything comes into play, at the time of the accident, the bus driver said “He was going to fast”. Therefore, when the officer asked everyone how fast the truck was going, everyone said, (except me, as I kept my mouth shut as explained above), that the truck was going at an excessive speed. In the finale report, the findings were that the truck was going at the normal speed. You see, the kids had been “Brainwashed” by our buddy, the bus driver! The point that I am trying to make is that I thought that when I got “big”, that everything would be truthful. Boy was I wrong! |
| The "Canteen" The above was first written on MS Word, then pasted on this page; so that I could be correct as possible; however, from now on, I will write some on this page and some that to which you will have a link. That way, it will be your choice to open.. ("Green" is in) |